The Immemorial City awaits: refuge of the Wicked Crone and her dark designs.

The season concludes with all the requisite and expected epic battles and opens with Kit and Elora facing down Kit’s brother, while Willow and the others debate taking the leap of faith to follow. The revolving conversation at the beginning struck me more as bad staging instead of humor.

Both Airk and the Crone (courtesy of magic, presumably) have shiny new clothes and hairstyles and she, way too heavy lipstick. The all-too-common equating of sexiness with evil is a topic way bigger than this little review, I’ll say only that the show could have left that out. One interesting note regarding Elora’s appearance as the series progressed, though, was her hair color. In a nice detail, her blond tresses turned more and more red with each episode. The more she came into her own (the baby in the original movie had fiery red hair), the redder her hair got. Presumably (again) the blond color was part of a spell when Sorsha decided to protect Elora by hiding her identity. When the Crone tries to lure Elora to abandon her abilities, the illusion cast shows Elora again totally blond.

Elora has two, maybe three, scenes of epiphany when she ‘finally’ realizes her true power. One actual scene would have been better. As it is, the redundant backsliding detracts from the big moment rather than adds to it. That undoubtedly has something to do with one of the characters stating that season one is Kit’s story. Kit did have a good arc with a nice resolution, also coming into her own. The magical armor only working for her was a very nice touch (with definitely call-outs to Iron Man and Black Panther). However, all the action, dialog, set-up, etc., focuses far too much on Elora for the show to not be Elora’s story at least equally, if not more so.

Overall, Willow is trying to be a fun show. Ultimately the attempts at humor didn’t work for me, but the story itself wasn’t bad. I love the cast and wish they’d had better writing and directing. The themes of the show – family and friendship are the greatest treasures; love is the greatest power – definitely came to the forefront in this episode. Major kudos for that. I wish more entertainment embraced them instead of the currently trendy dark, grim, bleak, cynical, etc.

Random observations: It was nice to see Sorsha again. The show woefully neglected the character. I’m assuming it was aiming at a young demographic, but they used Willow so they could have used her more as well. Madmartigan’s presence remained strong despite the regrettable but understandable absence of the character. The ending nicely sets up season 2, although word on that is still pending.

Verdict: The ultimate question is, will viewers watch season 2? My answer, perhaps surprisingly: yes. Season 1 improved as it progressed, and I’d be interested in seeing more of the story and the cast. 6/10

Rigel Ailur

http://www.BluetrixBooks.com